Interferon Side Effects: When Somatization Betrays You - A Case Report

Neuropsychiatric symptoms are widely reported in association with both hepatitis C and IFNα treatment [1]its sequelae, and its treatment. In particular, interferon, a primary component of treatment for chronic hepatitis C, has been strongly associated with depressive symptoms. This review summarizes current knowledge about the etiology, course, and treatment of europsychiatric problems associated with hepatitis C and interferon alpha (IFN-alpha and lead to discontinuation of interferon in up to 13% of cases [2]. When on interferon treatment, cognitive, affective and behavioral symptoms are not easily distinguished from each other or from depression [2,3] mechanism, course, and treatment of neuropsychiatric problems associated with interferon alfa (IFN-alpha. The challenge is even higher if in somatoform cases. We describe a case of somatoform disorder while on classic therapy for hepatitis C and discuss the management of the patient main complaints and evolution

Plasma phospholipidomic profile differs between children with phenylketonuria and healthy children

Phenylketonuria (PKU) is a disease of the catabolism of phenylalanine (Phe), caused by an impaired function of the enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase. Therapeutics is based on the restriction of Phe intake, which mostly requires a modification of the diet. Dietary restrictions can lead to imbalances in specific nutrients, including lipids. In the present study, the plasma phospholipidome of PKU and healthy children (CT) was analysed by HILIC-MS/MS and GC-MS. Using this approach, 187 lipid species belonging to 9 different phospholipid classes and 3 ceramides were identified. Principal component analysis of the lipid species dataset showed a distinction between PKU and CT groups. Univariate analysis revealed that 146 species of phospholipids were significantly different between both groups. Lipid species showing significant variation included phosphatidylcholines, containing polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), which were more abundant in PKU. The high level of PUFA-containing lipid species in children with PKU may be related to a diet supplemented with PUFA. This study was the first report comparing the plasma polar lipidome of PKU and healthy children, highlighting that the phospholipidome of PKU children is significantly altered compared to CT. However, further studies with larger cohorts are needed to clarify whether these changes are specific to phenylketonuric children.publishe

Comparative Analysis of Protein Structure Alignments

Background: Several methods are currently available for the comparison of protein structures. These methods have been analysed regarding the performance in the identification of structurally/evolutionary related proteins, but so far there has been less focus on the objective comparison between the alignments produced by different methods. Results: We analysed and compared the structural alignments obtained by different methods using three sets of pairs of structurally related proteins. The first set corresponds to 355 pairs of remote homologous proteins according to the SCOP database (ASTRAL40 set). The second set was derived from the SISYPHUS database and includes 69 protein pairs (SISY set). The third set consists of 40 pairs that are challenging to align (RIPC set). The alignment of pairs of this set requires indels of considerable number and size and some of the proteins are related by circular permutations, show extensive conformational variability or include repetitions. Two standard methods (CE and DALI) were applied to align the proteins in the ASTRAL40 set. The extent of structural similarity identified by both methods is highly correlated and the alignments from the two methods agree on average in more than half of the aligned positions. CE, DALI, as well as four additional methods (FATCAT, MATRAS, C -match and SHEBA) were then compared using the SISY and RIPC sets. The accuracy of the alignments was assessed by comparison to reference alignments. The alignments generated by the different methods on average match more than half of the reference alignments in the SISY set. The alignments obtained in the more challenging RIPC set tend to differ considerably and match reference alignments less successfully than the SISY set alignments. Conclusion: The alignments produced by different methods tend to agree to a considerable extent, but the agreement is lower for the more challenging pairs. The results for the comparison to reference alignments are encouraging, but also indicate that there is still room for improvement.(VLID)221254

Robust estimation of position-dependent anisotropic diffusivity tensors from stochastic trajectories

Materials under confinement can possess properties that deviate considerably from their bulk counterparts. Indeed, confinement makes all physical properties position-dependent and possibly anisotropic, and characterizing such spatial variations and directionality is an intense area of focus in experimental and computational studies of confined matter. While this task is fairly straightforward for simple mechanical observables, it is far more daunting for transport properties such as diffusivity that can only be estimated from autocorrelations of mechanical observables. For instance, there are well established methods for estimating diffusivity from experimentally observed or computationally generated trajectories in the bulk. No rigorous generalizations of such methods, however, exist for confined systems. In this work, we present two filtered covariance estimators for computing anisotropic and position-dependent diffusivity tensors and validate them by applying them to stochastic trajectories generated according to known diffusivity profiles. These estimators can accurately capture spatial variations spanning over several orders of magnitude and assuming different functional forms. Our approach is also very robust to implementation details such as the localization function and time discretization and performs significantly better than estimators that are solely based on local covariance. Moreover, the kernel function does not have to be localized and can instead belong to a dictionary of orthogonal functions. Therefore, the proposed estimator can be readily used to obtain functional estimates of diffusivity rather than a tabulated collection of pointwise estimates. Nonetheless, the susceptibility of the proposed estimators to time discretization is higher close to hard boundaries. We demonstrate this heightened susceptibility to be common among all covariance-based estimators.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures, 1 table, 2 algorithm

Northern sources of the Leeuwin Current and the “Holloway Current” on the North West Shelf

This paper reviews the northern sources of the Leeuwin Current and related circulation on theNorth West Shelf, north of where it consolidates into its well-known poleward boundary currentstructure off North West Cape, Australia.This review finds that relatively warm, low salinity waters enter the Indonesian-Australian Basinthrough two major remote northern sources. One is tropical Pacific Ocean water emanating fromthe South East Asian seas via the Lombok, Ombai and Timor Straits. The other is tropical northwestIndian Ocean water via the South Java Current within the 5–10° S zone off the Sumatra and Javacoasts.At the broadest scales, both sources undergo circuitous routes and associated evaporation andcooling before entering the head of the Leeuwin Current off North West Cape.It is largely unresolved as to how close to the North West Shelf coast the Leeuwin Current’s sourcewaters flow. However, earlier oceanographic studies, supported by more recently collected datapresented in this paper, indicate that at least during the low wind conditions of the SouthernHemisphere autumn, a reasonably well-defined, southwestward coastal flow occurs along the shelfand shelf break. An explanation previously suggested is that this current is driven by the stericheight gradient produced by local surface heating, and we propose here to name it the HollowayCurrent in honour of the late Dr Peter Holloway